• Energy

    Euro-5 Diesel Production to Reach 20 million l/d in Isfahan Refinery

    Work on a diesel treatment unit has made 85% progress and will help boost diesel production in compliance with Euro-5 standard at the Isfahan Oil Refining Company in central Isfahan Province next year, the company’s deputy production director said.

    “With the construction of the project that so far has cost $600 million sulfur content in diesel will be reduced to less than 10 PPM,” Alireza Jafarpour was quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry news portal.

    The company now produces four million liters of Euro-5 diesel a day and output will rise fivefold in 2021, he said.

    IORC recently launched a sulfur granulation unit with daily capacity of 300 tons. The move was in line with policies to reduce environmental pollution and upgrade quality of refined products.

    It minimizes the environmental impact of sulfur in the air and curbs emissions. Sulfur is used mainly to produce sulfuric acid, one of the important chemicals in industrial processes. It is widely used in the fertilizer and rubber industry, steel manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

    Established in 1979, the refinery produces 25% of the country’s petroleum products, including 16 million liters of Euro-4 diesel, eight million liters of Euro-4 and 12 million liters of Euro-5 gasoline a day.

    The company has succeeded in removing aromatic compounds, sulfur and benzene from AW-406 solvent and converting it to ++ AW-406 solvent, a widely-used material in chemical industries.

     

    Wastewater Treatment

    According to Morteza Ebrahimi, managing director of the firm, the company's wastewater treatment unit has started operations to help address water problems of the refinery.

    "The plant, with a capacity of 750 cubic meters per hour, cost $8 million and was built in two years." 

    He said the refinery buys wastewater from towns like Shahin Shahr in the vicinity of the company.  “The municipal wastewater is piped to the refinery and reused after treatment in the new plant.” 

    Ebrahimi had earlier warned that the refinery would have to either reduce or stop production if the worsening water crisis at the refinery was not resolved. The huge refinery consumes 1,000 cubic meters of water per hour of which 700 cm is recycled and reused. 

    "We have been grappling with water scarcity for a long time," he said, adding that the company processes 375,000 barrels of crude a day but cannot be sustained for long unless the refining units have enough access to water. 

    Located in the arid regions of Iran with minimal precipitation, Isfahan Province has been struggling with drought for seven years.

    According to Mohsen Mehralizadeh, governor general of the province, water flow into Zayandehroud Dam was 1.2 billion cubic meters in 2017, which has now declined to 400 million cubic meters.

    "Of the total flow, 320 mcm are used for drinking purposes and the rest for industries," he said, noting that due to the dramatic decline in precipitation, industries have to reduce water consumption by at least 25%.

     

    Mazut Reduction

    In related news, the news agency quoted Alireza Sadeqabadi, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, as saying that IORC has signed a contract with Nargan Company to process its mazut output.

    “Reducing the volume of mazut and converting it into other products is among NIORDC priorities,” he said, expressing the hope that the same would be done in other refineries in the country. A mazut reduction project is underway at Abadan Refinery in south Iran. 

    “We hope that the refineries in Tehran, Tabriz and Bandar Abbas that produce high volumes of mazut can follow suit.”